Author Publications2025-05-10T15:10:10+00:00

Hall should address real issues

“Forget Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson, put Louis Sockalexis in the Baseball Hall of Fame!” To hear that truly great master of being disingenuous and champion of using “Straw Man” fallacies — using logic fallacies I’ve cautioned my students not to use on their peers in my oral communications classes for a decade — you’d think that is my position and the Penobscot Nation position, according to Bradford Horn, National Baseball Hall of Fame public relations director.

By |August 24, 2009|Categories: Author Publications, Baseball Hall of Fame Disrespect|

Sports Illustrated should recognize Sockalexises

In a largely admirable July 31 editorial in the Bangor Daily News titled “A Baseball First,” the Penobscot Nation tribe was supported in its efforts demanding respect for Louis Sockalexis from the Cleveland Indians baseball franchise, but that editorial contains the very regrettable line that “the tribe might do well to narrow the focus of its outrage.”

By |August 10, 2009|Categories: Author Publications, Sports Illustrated Disrespect|

Author wants Sports Illustrated to honor Penobscot athletes’ legacy

ORONO, Maine – Author and professor Ed Rice is passionate about Penobscot Nation super-athletes and cousins Louis and Andrew Sockalexis. Louis was a phenomenal baseball player who rose to legendary heights in the late 1800s and early 1900s and was the inspiration for the nickname “Indians” that the Cleveland major league franchise first adopted in March 1897, and then officially adopted in February 1915.

By |April 26, 2009|Categories: Author Publications, Sports Illustrated Disrespect|

Negro League team played in Bangor; game accounts reflect accepted racism

On a Bangor baseball field that no longer exists, almost 100 years ago in May 1907, Louis Sockalexis, the first American Indian to play major league baseball, played for the Bangor town team against a club comprised of barnstorming Negro League players from the Philadelphia Giants, reigning champions of the “colored leagues.” The black players, at that time, were not allowed to compete at the highest level of baseball competition in this country because of their color until Jackie Robinson broke the so-called “color barrier” in 1947.

By |August 5, 2006|Categories: Author Publications, Sockalexis and Negro League|

Record may prove man’s status in baseball history; document boosts Sockalexis Hall of Fame claim

Ed Rice was home doing chores on Jan. 16 when an envelope arrived via FedEx. What he found inside, he said, made his jaw drop. Rice, the author of a book about legendary Indian Island baseball player Louis Sockalexis, who played in 94 games for the Cleveland Spiders from 1897 to 1899, now has what he believes to be the most compelling piece of evidence that Sockalexis was in fact the first American Indian to play major league baseball.

By |January 26, 2006|Categories: Author Publications, First-Known Indian Player?|

Cleveland nickname does not honor Sockalexis

In Maine, we should be more sensitive regarding disrespectful traditions aimed at Native Americans. And everyone, everywhere in this state should be particularly incensed at disrespect focused at our Penobscot tribe by the Cleveland Indians organization, which continues to claim (and rightly so) that the team’s nickname originated because of a real Indian from Maine.

By |April 3, 2004|Categories: Cleveland Indian Nicknames|

Indian nicknames lacking in respect; mascot makeover might be in order for some Maine high school teams

We live in a curiously impolite era. We know no new sporting team in this country – whether spawned to give identity to a new grade school, college or amateur team, or to promote the creation of a new professional enterprise – that would dare feature a mascot or logo with a direct racial or ethnic theme. And, of course, no one would seriously contemplate a design that would clearly be offensive to the Black, Hispanic, Jewish communities, etc.

By |April 2, 2004|Categories: Author Publications, Indian Nicknames/Mascots in Maine|
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